Many consumers want personal computers (PCs) to have more than one Universal Serial Bus (USB) port. Accordingly, most PC manufacturers include multiple USB ports on their PCs. If a PC has only a single USB port, a USB hub/repeater is often used to expand the single port into multiple ports.
One difficulty associated with hub/repeaters and with PCs having multiple USB ports is that each individual USB port requires dedicated data recovery and buffering circuitry to support the transmission of data across the port. This dedicated circuitry increases the power consumption of Hub/repeaters and multiple USB PCs over single port models. Moreover, the additional circuitry takes up more space; a disadvantage in today's market, which puts a premium on streamline devices. This increases the power consumption of PCs and hub/repeaters and utilizes more space. Accordingly, there is a need for a device and method that allows multiple USB ports to utilize a single data recovery circuit and elasticity buffer.